Maybe you need a public utility not a private electric company. Our public utility currently charges 8.79 cents per kilowatt-hour for power that is 70% renewable/nuclear and 30% natural gas. No coal.
Maybe you should be more honest that you’re getting hydro power.
What is dishonest? Hydro is renewable energy just like wind and solar. In fact they are all forms of solar power. The wind and water cycle are both driven by the sun.
Maybe you should be more honest about why your rates are high. Wasn't there a massive utility corruption and bribery scandal in your Republican legislature surrounding a sweetheart bailout for the nuclear and coal industry in which the costs were passed on down to the consumers? Let's see. Yep: https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2024/07/ ... niversary/
OCJ is an unreliable source of fake news which just promotes left wing viewpoints. Please find a better source if you wish to discuss that.
Power rates have skyrocketed across the nation including California. Places with local hydro haven’t since nobody has figured out an excuse to claim the rates should go up since they can’t blame “high fuel prices” and the infrastructure has already been built.
Judas Maccabeus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 04, 2024 11:01 pm
For some, natural gas is not an alternative, especially rural customers, my daughter is on Propane, which is crazy expensive.
My home is on resistive heat, and I’m unmotivated to change that since if I switch to propane, oil, or wood, the state will pay for less for those fuels and also raise my electric bill.
For power plants, if we want to make energy cheaper, we should use the sources that are cheapest. How much does it cost to produce a MWh of electricity?
I asked GPT to make a sorted list, with cheapest sources first. Currently, natural gas is the most widely used source. It's cleaner and cheaper than coal. Solar and wind have also become much, much cheaper than they used to be, but it's hard to get the same volume that we get from natural gas, at least currently. Wood pellets are significantly more expensive than the first three.
1. Solar Photovoltaic (PV): $24 to $48 per MWh 2. Wind (Onshore): $26 to $54 per MWh 3. Natural Gas: $45 to $74 per MWh 4. Biomass (Wood Pellets): $55 to $114 per MWh 5. Hydropower: $50 to $100 per MWh 6. Geothermal: $60 to $80 per MWh 7. Coal: $65 to $159 per MWh 8. Nuclear: $131 to $204 per MWh
If solar and wind were actually cheaper, they’d dominate new construction and be replacing more expensive forms. I have a feeling the costs aren’t listing capital costs, subsidies, nor costs of maintenance correctly. (For example, wind turbines need complete replacement after 19 years.)
Josh wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 9:55 am
If solar and wind were actually cheaper, they’d dominate new construction and be replacing more expensive forms. I have a feeling the costs aren’t listing capital costs, subsidies, nor costs of maintenance correctly. (For example, wind turbines need complete replacement after 19 years.)
LCOE is designed to measure the lifetime cost of energy sources. It includes those things.
The LCOE compares the cost of generating electricity from renewable energy technologies (e.g., wind and solar) to conventional technologies (e.g., gas, coal and nuclear), including across various scenarios and sensitivities. The LCOE allows for an apples-to-apples comparison of different technologies by accounting for factors like generation/output, upfront capital costs, fuel costs, operating and maintenance expenses, and asset lifetimes.
Here's what that looks like in detail. In some cases, costs depend on how a source is used - if you use gas to accommodate peaks, for instance, that's more expensive than using gas at stable levels. And you need sources that can be powered up for energy peaks. Wind and solar, for instance, don't do that.
Josh wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 9:55 am
If solar and wind were actually cheaper, they’d dominate new construction and be replacing more expensive forms. I have a feeling the costs aren’t listing capital costs, subsidies, nor costs of maintenance correctly. (For example, wind turbines need complete replacement after 19 years.)
Solar and wind energy are growing faster than even the most optimistic projections. Here is the actual trendline for solar compared to all the various projections.
And their costs are also falling faster than the most optimistic projections. And both solar and wind, are, in fact, growing at a faster rate than any other form of energy production from natural gas to nuclear to coal
Why would anyone build a new powerplant that requires an endless daily supply of expensive fossil fuels (coal or natural gas) or even biomass like wood pellets when one can build one that simply harnesses the free clean energy provided by the sun and wind?
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Josh wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 9:55 am
If solar and wind were actually cheaper, they’d dominate new construction and be replacing more expensive forms. I have a feeling the costs aren’t listing capital costs, subsidies, nor costs of maintenance correctly. (For example, wind turbines need complete replacement after 19 years.)
This graph shows where new construction is going. Solar, batteries, and wind power do seem to dominate new construction.
Josh wrote: ↑Thu Sep 05, 2024 9:55 am
If solar and wind were actually cheaper, they’d dominate new construction and be replacing more expensive forms. I have a feeling the costs aren’t listing capital costs, subsidies, nor costs of maintenance correctly. (For example, wind turbines need complete replacement after 19 years.)
Solar and wind energy are growing faster than even the most optimistic projections. Here is the actual trendline for solar compared to all the various projections.
And their costs are also falling faster than the most optimistic projections. And both solar and wind, are, in fact, growing at a faster rate than any other form of energy production from natural gas to nuclear to coal
Why would anyone build a new powerplant that requires an endless daily supply of expensive fossil fuels (coal or natural gas) or even biomass like wood pellets when one can build one that simply harnesses the free clean energy provided by the sun and wind?
Could you explain to us then why electricity is getting really expensive? (Please leave politics out of it; it is expensive and getting more expensive in places as diverse as Texas and California.)
Judas Maccabeus wrote: ↑Wed Sep 04, 2024 11:01 pm
For some, natural gas is not an alternative, especially rural customers, my daughter is on Propane, which is crazy expensive.
My home is on resistive heat, and I’m unmotivated to change that since if I switch to propane, oil, or wood, the state will pay for less for those fuels and also raise my electric bill.
I don't think I've ever heard that term before. Is that like baseboard heaters, or like a toaster? If so, that's how the electric shower heads worked in Brazil. (And just last year I tore out all of the baseboard heaters in a house we started renovating.....)
EDIT: I did a bit more on-line searching (put in a direct question about baseboard heaters), and I see that they are in fact 'resistive heaters'.
Yeah, I wish we could get those shower heads here. Hot water tanks are notoriously inefficient.
I have a central furnace that uses resistive heat. Eventually I’ll put in a heat pump to supplement it. It doesn’t get nearly as cold as it used to, tho.
